Peco wheel-cleaner repair

I'm putting together a mini tool box for the weekend. This is a little scary as I'm used to taking the full kit and back-up controllers. This is more your fingers-crossed, stripped-down, hold-your-nose time. But hey, only the biggest exhibition in the country so why worry, and anyway I've worked with Anthea Turner so nothing scares me anymore.

Top of the list was 'wheel cleaner'. It has to be said that my personal item is not that new - I'll take a stab at 1975 and probably cost about 40p.... for both brush and scraper. Now sold separately totalling about twenty quid. Needless to say this piece of kit has been ummm… over repaired in the past and now the wire has fallen off. Impossible to get into, so more hacking of plastic to expose as much tarnished wire as possible and the worst solder joint that you've ever seen.

Never let it be said that I throw money around.

End of an era

I bought a pair of toolboxes in Payless DIY (whatever happened to them?) in Rustington for £1.99 apiece. This must have been near on twenty years ago since I moved from the area (read: I got fed up with dodging flying crockery) in 1995.

The hinge system is just a thinner bit of the casing so I'm surprised they've lasted this long. This is the 'Number one box that sits at my feet like a faithful Irish Setter in the modelling room and gets taken to exhibitions. Number two lives upstairs and carries the stuff I don't use too often like Loctite 601 and broaches. Safe to say that all I've done is swap the contents over and not surprisingly found a load of things that I didn't know that I'd bought. Toolboxes have chronological layers...